


Here Are All the Sensations of Being Alive

by prettyasadiagram



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-18
Updated: 2012-07-18
Packaged: 2017-11-10 06:07:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,189
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/463048
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prettyasadiagram/pseuds/prettyasadiagram
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Contrary to what Clint likes to tell the new SHIELD agents, Natasha does have hobbies other than coming up with new and impressive ways to kill people with her thighs, even though the slight flinches and rabbit-quick swallows in the hallway are always hilarious. </p><p>Sadly, this isn’t a manifesto of Natasha’s carefully guarded hobbies, which, contrary to the latest rumor, does not include collecting spoons made out of the bones of her enemies. </p><p>Although really, that would be awesome.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Here Are All the Sensations of Being Alive

**Author's Note:**

> beta-ed by and for thatdamneddame, because she wrote me happy glitter fic when I was feeling sad.
> 
> Title comes from "For You Today" by Jessica Greenbaum

It’s late when Clint gets back from a mission, but Avengers Tower is still lit up like a sore thumb, still illuminating all the rubble left to clean up. He’s a bit sore and a lot tired, and really, all he wants to do is lie down and sleep for a week, warm his bones back to city temperature and forget the taste of doughy pierogi and bitter onion and the bite of a Ukrainian wind, but the thing about being a SHIELD agent, about being a _sniper_ , is that you trust your instincts, even when your body is dying to pass out with your boots on, and every instinct Clint has is screaming at him that someone has been in his room. His room may not be decorated and he may spend more time roaming the halls of Avenger Tower or the worn tiles of the SHIELD firing range than he does in his own room, but it’s still _his_ , his “nest,” if Tony’s feeling particularly vitriolic. You don’t see him swanning in and out of people’s private space like he has nothing better to do with his time, he leaves that to Tony, so you’d think that others would respect a locked door when they find one—

He pauses with one foot over the threshold, and sees his backup bow hung up on the wall where it’s supposed to be, only it’s been bedazzled, _not_ like it’s supposed to be. “Son of a bitch,” he breathes out, pissed, before snatching his bow from the wall and stalking out of the room.

+++

Halfway to Natasha’s room, Clint rethinks his strategy, because while direct confrontation would definitely fulfill the SHIELD therapist’s directives to engage in open and honest communication, if Natasha is resorting to children’s crafts, she’s more bored than he thought, so he might as well play along. More importantly, she won’t punch him for ending her game. After all, no one else will know. 

 

(Phil would know; he’d been there for Budapest—and for a second, Clint forgets that Phil isn’t _here_ anymore, that he won’t give Clint that willfully blank look if he came in with a bejeweled bow slung across his back, that look that means _Damn it, you had to do this in public_ , the look that means Phil is cackling inside, and Clint takes a moment just to lean against the wall and breathe and look at the bow in his hand, because of course Natasha would get it, would get his loss and bedazzle something just like before, when it was the three of them—Phil and Nat and him—against the world and remind Clint that he’s still not alone, even though now he has no one to grin at when Natasha’s being deliberately menacing. And yeah, Phil never grinned back, but Goddammit, his eyes fucking smiled and Clint feels like a teenage girl, but it’s the truth.) 

 

So instead he goes and finds Tony in his lab, AC/DC blaring as he scolds Dummy for shaking the workbench, because if Nat started this for a reason, he’s damn well not giving in first. Clint slams the bow on the table in front of him and glares.

Tony looks at it, “Pink—bold choice, Barton. Personally, I would’ve gone with purple, a nice plum color, to really match your outfit,” he picks up the bow to check the heft of it, “and good call with the rhinestones, sequins are just so tacky.”

Clint narrows his eyes. “I know you did this. It has your crappy sense of humor written all over it. I’m just surprised there wasn’t a stripper holding it when I got back.”

Tony starts to object, “I would—no, actually, _that_ sounds like something I’d do.”

They both look at the bow contemplatively. Clint draws in a breath and then pauses, “—you’re right, just this is too subtle for you.”

“I don’t know, rhinestones aren’t exactly stealth.”

“Yeah, but they also aren’t exactly screaming ‘genius billionaire playboy philanthropist.’” Clint waves off Tony’s, “You say that one time, and no one ever lets you live it down,” and walks out of the lab, job done, now that Tony’s interest is at least piqued. 

“Hey—let me know if it was Bruce, I bet it was him…,” Tony calls out, before smacking Dummy lightly. “What are you doing? Did I say you could touch that? No, stop that—“

+++

He’s sure Natasha only had good intentions, but when he said, “You and I remember Budapest very differently,” he’d meant it. 

For Nat, Budapest had been working in a café by day, serving taciturn city workers burnt coffee and watching as Clint shot and punched his way into the confidence of a ring of arms dealers. Budapest had been late nights cleaning guns and sharpening knives, following Clint in the shadows and silencing the occasional questioning voice. In the end, for Natasha, Budapest had been bedazzling freaking eagles and flags onto every article of clothing Clint owned while he was out maintaining his cover by drinking heavily with gruff Hungarian arms dealers.

For Clint, Budapest had been ill-fitting suits and heavy guns that didn’t have the same feel as his bow, late nights drinking questionably-flavored pálinka and playing games of poker with unspoken stakes, all ending in one very tense poker game made worse by the fact that when he got up to take a piss, his ass attracted a lot of attention and raised a lot of questions, because apparently it’s not very common to have a symbol of freedom and justice for all bedazzled on the seat of one’s pants, especially when you’re supposed to be an Eastern European of dubious origin who just wants to buy a lot of guns. Who knew?

With Phil’s voice urgent in his ear, and Natasha saying “Two minutes out, on my way,” he barricaded himself in the bathroom and hoped he wouldn’t have to shoot his way out before they got there.

He asked her about it later, if she’d brought it with her or found it somewhere in the city. She’d looked him in the eye and said, “You don’t want to know.”

She tells him later, when they’re stashed in a drafty train car bound for Prague and drunk off of cheap vodka that she swears is supposed to be bison grass vodka and all they need is apple juice to make this a real party, that she’d passed up a perfectly serviceable Twist-a-Braid Hair Braider for that Bedazzler, and there’s this undertone in her voice that tells him she’s honestly a bit sad about it. He gets her one for Christmas that year; none of his stuff was ever bedazzled again. Until now.

(In all fairness, Natasha didn’t realize it would end quite like that. She thought Clint would be able to hold his bladder for at least another hour and then she could swing in and help move things along. 

By week three of the mission, it had been painfully obvious that Clint was antsy and stressed, if the new tic of cracking his knuckles was any indication, and Coulson’s voice had this new and unpleasant edge, just a bit tighter than usual, so if anything was going to happen, Natasha knew she had to give it a little nudge. She just didn’t think it would be so…loud.)

+++

Clint has his suspicions when Steve lets him know that Maria Hill is looking for him. Maria Hill likes the Avengers as much as the next agent, but that doesn’t mean she wants to hang out with Clint’s variety of awesome.

Apparently, in his absence, Natasha’s been busy. Hill has an array of glittery objects on her desk: the lamp is covered in sequins, the desk phone bejeweled, and, in a stunning move of bravery, Natasha has bedazzled Hill’s secret candy stash. Twenty gleaming fun-size Snickers bars. 

“I don’t know how you did it, considering we’ve been in the Ukraine for the past two weeks, but this seems like your brand of stupid. Your partner in crime also left a newly decorated eye-patch on Fury’s desk.” She scrubs a hand over her face, “The look on his face, scary. I thought you guys were all getting along now? Are there any other disturbances I should know about?”

Clint straightens his back, “Not that I’m aware of, but you know how these things can escalate. I’ll be sure to let the rest of the team know that you did not appreciate your newly pimped out candy bars.” 

Hill throws one of the candy bars at his back as he hightails out with a laugh. 

+++

He really did mean to find Natasha first thing, but Thor was seeing how many hotdogs he could eat, and you just can’t say no to that. The best part was how after eighty hotdogs, Thor asked for pop tarts, and cheered when Jane suggested ice cream after. Clint loses twenty bucks to Darcy; he’d been so sure ice cream would be the vomit point, but no. That distinction goes to the round of waffles after the ice cream.

Clint regrets his decision to watch Thor eat his body weight in carbs and sugar when Tony comes storming into the kitchen the next morning. He doesn’t really take it as a sign of impending doom, because honestly, Tony clomps around a lot, mind still working over those last schematics even as his body blindly gropes for coffee. So no, Clint doesn’t look up and doesn’t see the scowl or the furrowed eyebrows that Tony’s rocking since Clint’s looking miserably into his bowl of cardboard masquerading as cereal. Darcy had swapped all the Captain Crunch for “Fiber One” or “Flax and Oats” after someone ate the last of her Cookie Crisps. He’s pretty sure it was Steve—no one actually likes Honey Bunches of Oats as much as he claims to.

Clint is trying to man up to take that one last soggy bite, when Tony slams a coffee mug on the table. Tony only has himself to blame for his resulting faceful of milk and flax. 

As it turns out, the mug has been bejeweled in a very familiar pattern. There’s lots of gold and red and—“Does that say ‘science bros’? Are you sure this wasn’t Bruce? Aren’t you and he,” Clint makes some sort of vague hand motion.

“Your revenge is paltry and weak, Barton, and still directed at the wrong person, but more importantly, are you suggesting that Bruce and I are having a thing on the side? Is that what that was supposed to be? Because you should know, Clint, the only man I have eyes for is you, you and your leather onesie. Don’t think I didn’t notice that you ripped the sleeves off again to get my attention, you hussy.”

From the corner of his eye, Clint sees Natasha slip past the kitchen doorway. “Ah, yes. _That_. Definitely what I mean. Not friends or science bros, nothing of the sort. If you’ll excuse me—” and as Tony just sort of gapes, Clint runs after Natasha, because this will probably get worse before it gets better, and, just like in Budapest, he never saw this coming, 

Even though he loses her in the tower and JARVIS declines to help him find her, Clint is right about it getting worse. The whole tower can hear Tony howling in rage as bedazzled mugs show up in his lab throughout the day. Never underestimate Natasha’s stealthiness. That way only leads broken noses, bruised egos, and glitter _everywhere_. 

+++

Clint finally catches up to Natasha in the gym. When she beckons, he tapes up and walks warily onto the mat, keeping his eyes firmly on her fists. As he lets her beat her boredom out on him, he says, “So, bedazzling? I thought we were done with that phase.”

She sucker punches him and laughs, “The next step was going to be braiding Thor’s hair while he slept, but he’s a surprisingly light sleeper.”

Clint works his jaw, thinking about what they’re both not saying, “He only sleeps the ‘sleep of the mighty and godlike’ when Jane’s with him. But she’ll probably help you out if you offer her booze.” 

Sweeping his legs out from under him, Natasha pins him and sits on his back, “For that, I won’t bedazzle your briefs. Or your suit.” 

He cranes his neck to stare at her, “Thanks, that’s a relief.” 

She smiles placidly, “Now I’m going to need you to get Steve out of the house, or I can make no promises about your sunglasses collection. Think how nicely they’ll glint in the sun. Or, think how great Steve’s _shield_ will look shining in the sun, freshly bedazzled.”

And that is how Clint becomes an accomplice to Natasha’s plan to break the souls of the male part of the Avengers through glitter, plastic jewels, and sequins. 

 

(Say what you will, Thor loves his twisty-braids and insists on keeping them in as badges of Midgardian honor. He is less amused when he discovers that Mjölnr has been covered in silver sequins.)

**Author's Note:**

> Please do not repost this work in its entirety or share this work on third-party websites such as Goodreads.


End file.
